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Kayak CEO Steve Hafner anticipates a significant shift in the travel industry by 2025 due to a potential partnership between AI engines and major travel companies, likening it to a ‘dam breaking.’ He expressed concerns over traditional travel sites becoming obsolete as consumers lean more towards AI-driven solutions and social media. Meanwhile, Kayak is building its own Large Language Model and aims to harness social media’s mass-market potential, while recognizing the growing influence of social media influencers in the travel sector.
The Kayak CEO, Steve Hafner, said “feared” 2025 will see the first successful industry agreement between an AI engine and a wonderful player, then “it will be a bit like a break in the dam. “
“Once one of the AIS does paintings with a big player, they’re all going to compete for money,” Hafner said, mentioning Airbnb and Kayak Sister Corporate Booking. com as in this major category of business.
Hafner was speaking at Skift’s Megatrends 2025 event in Manhattan Tuesday on “What’s Ahead for 2025.”
Hafner said it had to be established how AI will be announced in terms of “which requires credits for a genuine reserve. “
For example: does the reservation pass through Google Gemini to the hotel or the airline, or passes through an intermediary like kayak?
The evolution of customer habit and upcoming regulations will also help the long realization of AI and travel, he said.
Hafner said he was involved in whether classic sites would fall victim to converting customer behavior.
“My concern is that they will avoid going to the classic sites to visit them or download an application, and they will depend more and more on social networks,” said Hafner. “That’s where they are spending their time, and then the and the Ai modela where you get answers. “
Hafner said Kayak’s building its own Large Language Model — “a lot of other companies are doing the same” — because the costs are dropping. But it’s also providing data to Google Gemini.
“But just because kayak AI is greater than the taste of kayaking in Gemini doesn’t mean other people don’t use Gemini,” he said.
As Megatend Skift noted, “influencers are the new agents on a journey. “
Hafner accepted that the influencers “really move the needle” and replaced reading critics as their generation did in TripAdvisor.
He said Expedia is probably the most advanced company in travel in the use of influencers as it’s “gone with a curated list of creators.” They make recommendations that can be booked on the platform.
Kayak’s CEO said his business would take another route. “We are going to see to go with the mass market,” said Hafner. “It can a percentage of your favorite destinations, and if someone buys it through it, you are paid. It is quite great. So we will take social networks, see to remodel this in a functionality chain. “
Tags: ai, google, kayak, megatrends 2025, MT25, online travel newsletter, skift live
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